Actually, the center inlet was not my idea. However, after seeing how almost every block benefits from having the inlet directly above the die due to the much larger local heat transfer coefficients, I decided to change that on my design. However, with my original design and center inlets I had 6 hose barbs on the top! It worked well, but was a huge mess of tubing in the case. Then a buddy said, "Make an intake manifold for it."
So I bought some 3/4" aluminum for the manifold top, and it worked out extremely well.
I did not design the manifold with any pump in mind. I first tried to calculate the best nozzle characteristics, but soon found out that there is not a great deal of knowledge in this area and the equations I was using were on the edge of their valid ranges. I kept getting unstable results. That's when the idea came to me to make the nozzle adjustable so that the block could be tuned for individual blocks.
The equations governing the local heat transfer coefficients are dependent upon the incoming water velocity, and thus will be different for almost every person's system. The individual's selection of pump, radiator, tubing lengths, and many other factors will affect the flowrate and pressure available at the waterblock.
That's when I realized I had an original idea in the watercooling field. Up until that point I had done nothing that was groundbreaking, at least in waterblocks. Implementing the adjustable manifold in waterblocks is my only truly original idea.
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